Victory: Reid pulls earmark-packed omnibus spending bill

posted at 8:44 pm on December 16, 2010 by Allahpundit

Speaking now on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) says he is “sorry and disappointed” to announce that he does not have the votes for the omnibus spending package. Instead, he will work with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to draft a temporary continuing resolution to fund the government into early next year.

Reid says nine Republican senators approached him today to tell him that while they would like to see the bill passed, they could not vote for it. He did not reveal the names of the nine. A top Senate source tells National Review Online that “it looks like Harry Reid buckled under the threat of Republicans reading [the bill] aloud.”

The mood among conservatives on Twitter and inside the GOP caucus is sheer exultation, from McConnell declaring this a “victory for the country” to McCain calling it a “seminal moment” to Philip Klein at AmSpec pronouncing it a triumph — albeit an early and incomplete one — for the tea party. Remember, when the bill was first released a few days ago, there were reportedly at least four Republicans thinking of voting for it, including two retirees in Bennett and Voinovich. Having nothing to lose, they’re presumably still onboard, which means this must have crashed and burned because red-state Democrats got nervous about it. McCaskill was opposed early on, and I assume Tester, Nelson, and the usual suspects must have been jittery too. The question now: To make it up to Reid, did they promise to vote yes on another piece of legislation still to come in the lame duck? Like, say, the DREAM Act?

For your amusement, here are McCain and Mark Kirk taking a few moments on the Senate floor to grind Reid’s face in this failure. Click the image to watch.

Update: The gray lining in this silver cloud for most conservatives? With the spending bill off the agenda, Reid now has time to bring “don’t ask, don’t tell” to the floor for a vote. That bill and the DREAM Act are now slated to hit the floor on Saturday.

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It’s time to call it a session and head home. The only legislation they have to vote on is the most unpopular of all. These people don’t understand how out of touch with America they really are. Oh for a blizzard to stop everything and know out power to the capital for two or three days.

If DREAM passes due to Republican votes, there might be lots of people who voted for Republicans in November 2010 who won’t do the same in November 2012. Let’s hope there aren’t enough squishy douchebag RINOs in the Senate to pass DREAM.

The gray lining in this silver cloud for most conservatives? With the spending bill off the agenda, Reid now has time to bring “don’t ask, don’t tell” to the floor for a vote. That bill and the DREAM Act are now slated to hit the floor on Saturday.

what’s new? 111th Congress and plenty o’ crap sandwiches every day of the week.

They have to move on to START, and the GOP wants to amend the preamble to provide explicitly for missile defense and perhaps other issues. According to NRO, the parliamentarian ruled today that the senate can, indeed, amend the preambl to the treaty negotiated with Russia.

McCain is supposed to have several amendments ready. He can be a pain-in-the-butt RINO, but he does usually come through on defense issues.

JimPethokoukis: Man, this thing is setting up perfectly for Paul Ryan to start wielding the ax in 2011
2 minutes ago
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edatpost: As reported since last night, at least 60 votes are there for cloture vote on #DADT and final passage.
5 minutes ago
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edatpost: @HarryReid schedules #DADT cloture vote for Saturday. Final vote on the bill likely Sunday, or Monday.
5 minutes ago
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IBDeditorials: Ramirez cartoon: How the Lame Duck became extinct LINK
9 minutes ago
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jaketapper: RT @robertcostaNRO: McConnell to NRO: “I’m proud of the appropriations cmte members…who decided that this is not the way to do it.”
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JimDeMint: Keep the pressure up! Reid still trying to ram through flawed START Treaty, DREAM Act amnesty, & DADT repeal.
20 minutes ago
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SenJohnMcCain:Huge defeat for the big spenders, and a great victory for the American people – LINK
37 minutes ago
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newtgingrich: About to speak to Spartanburg, SC GOP. Excited to tell them good news about pork filled omnibus being defeated.
25 minutes ago
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The only thing that should be up for a vote until the new members arrive is to extend the tax cuts and a resolution to fund government until the new congress can craft a good budget. Everything else is pure BS.

Why did it go down? You had Jim DeMint rallying outside opposition, and pushing Reid’s back against the wall procedurally with the threat to have the whole monstrosity read on the floor; that was time Reid presumably couldn’t afford to waste given everything else he wants to jam through.

Then, you had Mitch McConnell on the phone all day with Republican appropriators–Reid’s base of support on the bill–twisting their arms to come out against it. My understanding is that by the end he had all the appropriators committed against it, with the exception of two who were undecided. McConnell told the appropriators that passing this bill, and passing it this way, would represent a rejection of everything the mid-term election was about, and ultimately he prevailed. Again and again over the last two years, McConnell has done what a minority leader needs to do–keep his troops united.

And, finally, there was McCain. He was out there, too. On “Hannity” last night, he sounded like a tea-partier, urging people to use social media and to flood the phone lines in opposition. It must have been particularly sweet for him, after all these years battling appropriators, doing a victory jig all over the bill on the senate floor a little while ago.

I think Tom Coburn’s new handy dandy on-line earmark index had something to do with it. Too many GOP senators got caught with hands in cookie jar.

Wethal on December 16, 2010 at 9:06 PM

I was listening earlier to FOX , not sure who it was but he was saying that the Dems added many of those earmarks themselves. In other words they were requests that have been hanging around by the GOP members for some time and they just included them into this Omnibus bill. I would not put it past them to do so to either embarrass the GOP and or hang that nice bribe in front of them, actually both!

My sentiments exactly. Dream is a blanket amnesty for millions of criminals. I called KBH’s office two days ago (for about the 10th time) and I could barely get the words out urging her not vote for it and the aide cut me off and almost screamed “She’s not voting for it”. Cornyn’s a no also. Call the senators tomorrow who are up for re-election in 2012.

rob verdi: I’m cutting Queeg some slack on this,he started
talking on the floor,essentially a verbal dance,
which,pissed off some members on da otherside of
da aisle,caught it earlier a bit on C-Span!:)

Obama found in corner of family quarters contemplating why Amurkins just don’t unnerstand his party’s awesomeness anymore. Big Chelle is standing over him with the official Big Chelle Beating Bat(tm) telling him he best be getting on with the vacacay plan or the next things to go are DREAM, START, DADT, etc-et-er-ah.

New York Times correspondent Peter Baker says that McCain “has gently broken” with Kyl. But as Hill reporter Jordan Fabian notes, McCain appeared yesterday on Fred Thompson’s radio program and “said it would be a ‘good idea’ to wait until January to debate and pass” the treaty, adding that he still harbored “serious concerns about the missile-defense part of it.” Fabian also points out that McCain has “backed Kyl’s plan to bring up the pact the week of Jan. 24 and debate it for a week before holding a ratification vote.”

Today, during a floor speech on the imprisonment of Russian businessmen Mikhail Khordokovsky and Platon Lebedev, McCain said that while New START “should be considered on its merits to our national security . . . it is only reasonable to ask: If Russian officials demonstrate such a blatant disregard for the rights and legal obligations owed to one of their own citizens, how will they treat us — and the legal obligations, be it this treaty or any other, that they owe to us?” He promised to submit amendments in the days ahead.

Which brings us to Tuesday’s ruling by the Senate parliamentarian, who concluded that the New START preamble could indeed be amended. Why does that matter? As Foreign Policy blogger Josh Rogin explains, “Treaty supporters object to amending the preamble, because any changes would force the treaty to go back to bilateral negotiations with the Russians, which could take months and possibly even scuttle New START entirely.” Republican critics have argued that the preamble text would hamper U.S. missile-defense efforts, a problem they hope to rectify during the amendment process.

Look for McCain to play a key role in that process, and in determining whether New START wins ratification before the 111th Congress adjourns. Right now, says a GOP Hill lobbyist who has monitored the debate closely, “I don’t think anyone knows what the hell is going to happen.”

I saw your post about fewer enlistees. Is that it? Because the same could be said about racially integrating the armed forces after WWII. If gays can do the job, let them. Else, let’s make Mel Gibson chair of the RNC.